Introduction

Civil society and human rights activists in Saudi Arabia are
struggling for greater popular political participation, judicial reform, and an
end to discrimination against women and minorities. Saudi authorities have responded
by cracking down on rights defenders, quashing calls for change, and preventing
the development of an opposition movement.

This report presents the stories of 11 prominent Saudi social
and political rights activists, and their struggle to resist government efforts
to silence them. Saudi Arabia’s sweeping campaign against human rights
and civil society activists has included threats, intimidation, investigations,
prosecutions, and detentions. The 11 individuals profiled in this report demonstrate
some of the struggles and successes of Saudi Arabia’s small but growing
activist community.

Several of the activists profiled in this report used social
media and online forums to initiate campaigns and build networks, which have been
a major feature of rights activism in Saudi Arabia since 2009. Tens of
thousands of Saudi citizens have participated in online campaigns, such as a
campaign to free Samar Badawi, a woman jailed for “parental disobedience”
according to a judge’s interpretation of Islamic law, and the
“Women2Drive” initiative, an advocacy campaign that encourages
Saudi women to drive in defiance of the government ban on women driving. A
number of recently founded, mostly Internet-based, nongovernmental human rights
organizations regularly issue statements on individual cases of human rights
abuses. Despite the authorities’ efforts to block online content, Saudis –
at least 49 percent of whom have Internet access – have used Internet
forums to bypass heavily censored state media.

The Arab uprisings in 2011 encouraged activists to move
beyond online campaigning and organize small demonstrations and sit-ins in the
streets. In Riyadh and Buraydah, families of detainees held for years without
charge began holding demonstrations outside Ministry of Interior buildings and
detention facilities, calling on authorities to either release or try their
family members. In the eastern cities of Qatif and Awammiyah, demonstrators called
for greater religious freedoms and an end to institutionalized discrimination
against the country’s Shia minority. Activists across the country launched
campaigns for gender equality, inviting women to defy discriminatory practices imposed
by Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship system. Political and religious figures
circulated petitions that requested King Abdullah to implement judicial reforms
and release political detainees.

The Saudi government has harassed, intimidated, and
attempted to silence human rights and civil society activists for many years,
but redoubled its efforts since early 2011, including travel bans, termination
of employment, smear campaigns, as well as detentions and prosecution. The
Saudi Ministry of Interior continues to arrest and hold independent civil
society activists for months without charge.

Saudi police and judicial authorities have harassed and
jailed Saudi rights activists, like Samar Badawi, who challenged restrictive
aspects of Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship system, under which girls and
women are forbidden from traveling, conducting official business, or undergoing
certain medical procedures without permission from their male guardians.

Authorities have refused to license new human rights
organizations and instead have sentenced their founders to lengthy prison terms.
Saudi judicial authorities have tried and convicted prominent activists,
including Abdullah al-Hamid, Mohammed al-Qahtani, Sulaiman al-Rashoodi, and
Mikhlif al-Shammari, on account of their peaceful pro-reform activism, charging
them with arbitrary “crimes” that violate their right to free
expression and association such as “setting up an unlicensed organization”,
“breaking allegiance with the ruler”, and “attempting to
distort the reputation of the kingdom.”

Jeddah lawyer Waleed Abu al-Khair and Eastern Province
activist Fadhil al-Manasif remain on trial on charges including
“insulting the judiciary,” “trying to distort the reputation
of the kingdom,” and “inciting public opinion against the
state.”

Saudi Arabia does not allow most political or human rights
associations to register or formally operate. The only exception is the
National Human Rights Society, established in 2004, which receives funding from
the estate of the late King Fahd. Saudi officials have refused to license
independent human rights organizations such as the Saudi Civil and Political
Rights Association (ACPRA), the Adala Center for Human Rights, the Union for
Human Rights, and Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia and have blocked
their websites.

Authorities have blocked web pages calling for reforms,
including, for example, the Eastern Province-based Rasid News Website since
2003, the website of the Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia since 2008, and
hundreds of pages originating from outside the kingdom.

The Ministry of Interior has maintained its long-standing
ban on all public protests and sit-ins, including marches and protests in Qatif
and Awammiyah in 2011 and small sit-ins by family members of security detainees
in Buraydah and Riyadh in 2011 and 2012. In addition, the Ministry of Interior
has pursued criminal prosecutions against rights activists for alleged
“crimes” based solely on the peaceful practice of their right to
free expression and association, branding them criminals and even “terrorists.”
One example of such prosecutions is the case of the so-called Jeddah reformers,
a group of 16 men arrested in February 2007 for allegedly gathering funds for
terrorism. The men are well-known for their public stances demanding human rights
and political reform in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia does not have a written penal code, leaving
judges free to sentence activists based on their own interpretations of the
Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, the two agreed-upon sources of
Islamic Sharia law. Defendants accused of political offenses are often
sentenced by the Specialized Criminal Court (SCC), set up to try
terrorism-related cases, which routinely denies defendants the most basic fair
trial guarantees, including the right to a lawyer, and passes sentences in
closed proceedings. Authorities continue to hold prominent Saudi rights
activists in prolonged incommunicado detention, completely cut off from their
families and the outside world. Prison officials held activists Sulaiman al-Rashoodi
and Fadhil al-Manasif in incommunicado detention for extended periods, after
Saudi police arrested them for their peaceful rights activism, eventually
charging both with “breaking allegiance with the ruler,” among
other charges.

In addition to trials, the Ministry of Interior regularly
bans activists from foreign travel for extended periods and without specifying
reasons for the ban or giving notification. Many activists, such as Waleed Abu
al-Khair, discovered they were banned from travel only at the airport as they
attempted to exit Saudi Arabia. Under article six of Saudi Arabia’s
travel documents law, authorities can only impose a travel ban via a judicial
ruling or by decision of the minister of interior. The ban can only be imposed
for specified reasons that are related to security for a specific period. The
Arab Charter on Human Rights, which Saudi Arabia ratified in 2009, holds that
no one may be arbitrarily or unlawfully prevented from leaving any country,
including his own.

Clerics in Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment,
which exercises broad control over many governmental agencies including the
judiciary, continue to issue fatwas (religious edicts) against rights
activists and social critics, calling for their execution as apostates.
Repressive government policies, including the ban on protests, are often
endorsed by the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, the highest Saudi state body
for the interpretation of Islamic law.

In spite of repression by the state and the religious establishment,
Saudi activists continue to challenge the authorities, risking their freedom
and livelihoods in order push for genuine reform and respect for human rights.

Saudi Arabia should immediately halt its ongoing crackdown
on peaceful activists and release all detainees held on charges and convictions
stemming entirely from their peaceful exercise of their rights to free
expression, association, and belief. Authorities should also enact major
judicial reforms such as:

issuing a written penal code that is consistent
with human rights standards and does not criminalize freedom of expression and
association;

issuing an associations law that allows
civil society organizations to form and operate without undue government
interference;

abolishing the male guardianship system and
all laws and regulations stemming from it;

enacting legislation that prohibits and
gives effective remedies against discrimination of religious minorities and
women; and;

abolishing all laws and regulations that disproportionately
interfere with free expression, including on electronic networks.

The other countries, particularly major allies such as the
United States, the United Kingdom, and other European Union member states,
should publically call on Saudi authorities to stop all arrests and trials of
peaceful activists and release of all prisoners held on charges relating to
their peaceful activism. The international community should also press Saudi
Arabia to sign and ratify major international human rights legislation such as
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the International
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).

Legal Background

Saudi Arabia applies Sharia (Islamic law) as the law of the
land. The first article of the kingdom’s Basic Law of Governance elevates
the Quran and the Prophet’s traditions (Sunna) to the status of a
constitution. Unlike nearly all Muslim-majority countries, Saudi Arabia has never
drafted a written penal code, though authorities promulgated a criminal
procedure code in 2001. Consequently, the religious establishment plays a
central role in the country’s governance and has broad influence over
many aspects of everyday life. However, Sharia jurisprudence as practiced in
Saudi Arabia does not comprise a codified set of rules and does not acknowledge,
in practice, the precedents set by other courts in previous rulings. In effect,
the Saudi judicial system grants virtually unlimited discretion to prosecutors
and judges to hand down vague and arbitrary charges against persons engaged in
peaceful advocacy, such as “breaking allegiance with the ruler”[1]
or “sowing discord”[2], on the
basis that these charges stem from principles of uncodified Sharia.[3]

Criminal Justice

Saudi authorities have used the criminal justice system as a
principal tool for silencing dissent, including threats of prosecution, vague
and arbitrary charges, unfair trials, and long prison sentences.

Saudi Arabia has no penal code, leaving judges free to convict
and sentence activists based on their own interpretations of Sharia law. In the
absence of a penal code, it appears that judges in some cases have set out to
prove that the defendant has engaged in a certain act, which they then classify
as a crime, rather than proving that the defendant has committed the elements
of a specific crime as set out in law.[4] Previous
court rulings do not bind Saudi judges, and there is little evidence to suggest
that judges are consistent in sentencing for similar crimes.[5]
As a result, citizens and residents have no means of knowing with any precision
what constitutes a criminal offence.

Under Saudi criminal procedures, unless the crime is
considered “major”[6] by the
Ministry of Interior, the trial judge acts as both judge and prosecutor. In all
criminal cases, the judge can change the charges against the defendant at any
time.

In most of the cases Human Rights Watch has documented,
prosecutors prohibit lawyers from assisting suspects during interrogation, and judges
sometimes refuse to allow defense lawyers to examine witnesses or present
evidence at trial. Judges sometimes prohibit defendants and their lawyers from
seeing or challenging allegedly incriminating evidence.

The presumption by courts of guilt instead of innocence in
criminal cases, vague and shifting charges, and denial of access to evidence
and lawyers, often combine to create insurmountable obstacles for defendants trying
to prove their innocence.

In 2008, the Supreme Judicial Council established the
Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) to try thousands of terrorism suspects, many
of whom had languished for years without charge or trial in detention
facilities run by the Ministry of Interior’s domestic intelligence
service, the General Directorate of Investigation (generally referred to as al-Mabahith).
Saudi authorities have not made public any statute or other law setting up the
court or specifying its jurisdiction. Authorities have used the court to try
peaceful dissidents and rights activists on charges that do not represent
recognizable crimes and in proceedings that violate the right to a fair trial. In
the cases that Human Rights Watch has documented, trials at the SCC, with few exceptions,
are closed to observers and defendants are often denied the right to appoint a
lawyer of their choice.[7]
Human rights activists and others have complained that they believe the court
effectively works under the Ministry of Interior.

Although judges have discretion to determine crimes and
punishments, in 2001, Saudi Arabia promulgated the country’s first Law of
Criminal Procedure (LCP), which regulates arrest, detention, interrogation, and
trial.[8] While codification
was a welcome step, judges have routinely ignored the provisions of the LCP.[9]

Further, the LCP does not incorporate many international
standards pertaining to the basic rights of detainees and defendants, and
clearly violates others. For example, the LCP does not recognize the right of a
detainee to challenge the lawfulness of his or her detention before a court,
fails to guarantee his or her access to legal counsel in a timely manner, and
contains no provision for free legal assistance to the those who need it. The
LCP grants the prosecutor the power to detain suspects without having to meet a
defined standard of evidence of a suspect’s probable guilt, and to issue
arrest warrants and prolong pretrial detention for up to six months without any
judicial review. It does not set out the principle of presumption of innocence
or protect a defendant’s right not to incriminate him or herself.

While the LCP prohibits torture and undignified treatment,
it does not make statements obtained through abuse inadmissible in court.
Furthermore, the LCP does not provide sanctions for officials who coerce
defendants.

Human rights defenders have, however, sought to use the LCP
to challenge arbitrary detentions. A number of activists with the Saudi Civil
and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) sued the government in administrative
courts for breaches of the LCP. In some cases courts ruled that detentions were
arbitrary and in a few cases, including that of human rights defender Mikhlif
al-Shammari, required compensation for the victim. However, even in such cases,
the Ministry of Interior does not always abide by court orders and release
people or pay compensation.

Violations during Arrests and Pretrial Phase

Saudi law provides some formal safeguards against arbitrary
arrest, but police officers frequently violate them with impunity. In violation
of Saudi law, police officers often carry out arrests without warrants, fail to
inform suspects of the reasons for their arrest or of their rights to legal
counsel, and do not grant detainees the right to communicate with the outside
world; and prosecutors do not charge suspects with a crime.[10]

Officials at detention and holding facilities sometimes subject
detainees to abuse. Human Rights Watch has received allegations of
ill-treatment at detention facilities run by the General Directorate of
Investigation (al-Mabahith); these facilities range from holding cells in
local intelligence offices to sprawling prison complexes such as the Mabahith-run
prison of al-Ha’ir near Riyadh.[11]

The governmental Human Rights Commission and nongovernmental
National Society on Human Rights say that incidents of torture and
ill-treatment in prison have decreased significantly since they began regular
prison visits and established offices inside prisons to receive complaints beginning
in 2004.[12] Detainees
have languished in Mabahith-run detention facilities for years without
charge or trial.[13] Human
Rights Watch continues to receive reports of torture and other ill-treatment in
prisons and detention centers. Rights activists Mikhlif al-Shammari and Fadhil
al-Manasif have alleged torture and other ill-treatment during their
detentions, including beatings, electrocution, and pouring chemicals into the
mouth.

Police officers, and sometimes prosecutors, have beaten and
threatened suspects in order to extract confessions at police stations, in
particular at the branches of the Ministry of Interior’s Criminal
Investigation Department.[14] Based
on the cases that Human Rights Watch has observed, judges rarely, if ever, seek
to authenticate the validity of confessions or take steps to ensure they were
not obtained under duress.[15]

Saudi Arabia has also granted powers of arrest and detention
to other bodies. The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of
Vice (CPVPV), also known as the religious police or al-Mutaween, is an
authorized law enforcement agency. The CPVPV is tasked with enforcing
“moral behavior” in society, and is regularly involved on issues
ranging from drugs, sorcery, and prostitution to enforcing appropriate dress
and mandating prayer attendance. CPVPV officers have not observed the LCP in
the past when arresting, detaining, and interrogating suspects.[16]
King Abdullah and other high officials have pledged to end these abuses.[17]

Cyber-Legislation and Human Rights Organizations

In response to Saudis’ increased use of online discussion
forums, blogs, news websites, and social networking sites like Facebook and
Twitter,[18] the
Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information on January 1, 2011, issued the
Executive Regulation for Electronic Publishing Activity.[19]
The new regulation subjects all forms of electronic news and information
sharing to the vague provisions of the Press and Publications Law of 2003,
including requiring publications to promote Islam, not to harm national
security or economic interests, health, and public order, or prejudice the
dignity and liberty of individuals.[20]

Under the 2011 rules, operators of news websites, discussion
forums, blogs, personal websites, or those publishing information via mobile
phone text messaging or group emails require a ministry license or
registration. These provisions compound the country's 2007 anti-cybercrime law,
which imposes harsh criminal penalties, such as up to five years in jail for
persons who are judged to have defamed others online or produced online
material that “harms public order, religious values, [or] public
morals…”[21]

Saudi prosecutors have used the 2007 anti-cybercrime law as
the basis of prosecution for several activists, including Raif Badawi and
Mikhlif al-Shammari. Authorities have also stepped up Internet monitoring and
prosecutions for postings on social media networks.[22]

Saudi authorities maintain a de facto ban on virtually all
independent political and human rights organizations, and the government has
denied licenses to newly formed online organizations. It recognizes just one
human rights organization, the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR),
founded in 2004. According to the 2012 US human rights report on Saudi Arabia,
the NSHR receives monetary support from a trust funded by the estate of the
late King Fahd.[23] The
appointed Shura Council, which fulfills some functions of a parliament,
approved a draft law to regulate nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in 2008,
but the Council of Ministers has so far not passed it.[24]

Women’s Rights

Under the discriminatory Saudi guardianship system, girls
and women are forbidden from conducting official business, traveling, marrying,
undertaking higher education, or undergoing certain medical procedures without
permission from their male guardians, namely their fathers, husbands, brothers,
uncles, or even sons. Under the guardianship system women are treated as legal
minors, entitled to little control over their own lives and well-being or that
of their children, and routinely forced to submit to the wishes of male
guardians.[25] Coupled
with this, the prohibition on women driving and strictly enforced sex
segregation adds to these barriers and hinders Saudi women’s ability to
participate fully in public life.

Women face additional discrimination in gaining access to
justice. They cannot represent themselves in court and must obtain a court
order to transfer their guardianship to another male relative in circumstances
of parental or spousal abuse. Removal of male guardianship remains at the
discretion of individual judges, even in cases of abuse. The Council of
Ministers passed a law on protection from abuse that for the first time
criminalizes domestic violence. However, it currently has no specific
enforcement mechanisms to ensure prompt investigations of abuse allegations or
prosecution of those who commit abuses. In the absence of such a measure women remain
at risk. The law’s effectiveness will also be hampered by the fact that women
would require logistical support or transportation from male relatives, who themselves
often are the abusers, in order to report abuses or escape abusive situations.[26]
Saudi authorities justify the guardianship system by reference to a restrictive
interpretation of an ambiguous Quranic verse.[27] The
system constitutes the most significant impediment to the realization of
women’s rights in the kingdom.[28]

Parents can also pursue criminal prosecutions against their male
and female dependents on the charge of `Uquq al-Waleedeyn, or
“parental disobedience.” This affects women disproportionately,
particularly those who flee or try to transfer their guardianship to another
male relative. The charge is vague and uncodified; as such, judges, as in most
cases, have complete discretion in conviction and sentencing. Hundreds of cases
are before the courts on such charges.[29]

Samar Badawi: Litigating for Women’s Rights

Samar Badawi, 33, is a women’s rights activist who has
challenged Saudi laws that allow male guardians to restrict women’s freedom
of movement and ability to marry, even in cases where the guardian is
responsible for abuse. She has petitioned for an end to the ban on
women’s ability to drive and for women to be allowed to vote and run for
elected office. She became a rights activist in 2011 after having suffered
personally for a decade under Saudi Arabia’s discriminatory
“guardianship” laws, including a seven-month imprisonment on the
charge of parental disobedience.

Badawi’s father physically abused her when she was a
teenager and she attempted to run away from home at the ages of 13 and 16, she
told Human Rights Watch. In 2008, Badawi, then aged 26, finally found refuge at
a shelter for abused women in Jeddah.

She then took a highly unusual step and began legal
proceedings at the Jeddah Public Court to strip her father of her guardianship,
which allowed him control over key aspects of her life, including her financial
affairs.

In retaliation, Badawi said, her father used his status as
her guardian to file a charge of “parental disobedience” against
her at the Jeddah Criminal Court in 2009.

In June 2009, the judge in the case, Abdullah al-Othaim, issued
a warrant for Badawi’s arrest, stating that “disobedience is among
the serious cases requiring imprisonment,” citing Ministry of Interior
decree No.1900 of 2007.[30] However,
the only crime concerning parent-child relations that is mentioned in the decree,
dated August 14, 2007, is “assaulting a parent with beatings”; the other
14 serious crimes requiring detention pending trial do not include a
child’s “disobedience” of a parent.[31]

Badawi left the women’s shelter in July 2009 to live
with her brother with the permission of Jeddah’s mayor, Prince
Mish’al bin Abd al-Majid. She believed that doing so would protect her
from arrest and imprisonment in the outstanding disobedience case, she told
Human Rights Watch. After her father refused to allow her to marry, in 2010 Badawi
filed an additional charge of “adhl”[32]
against him for arbitrarily withholding permission to marry under principles of
Sharia.[33]

On April 4, 2010, when Badawi went to the Jeddah Public Court
to attend the first session in the case against her father, authorities
arrested her based on the outstanding “parental disobedience”
warrant, Badawi’s lawyer, Waleed Abu al-Khair, told Human Rights Watch. According
to al-Khair, Badawi spent seven months in detention at Briman prison in Jeddah
while he continued to pursue the case against her father.

After al-Khair shared information about Badawi’s case with
local and international media Jeddah residents launched an online campaign to
raise awareness about her unfair detention. Popular campaigns against
Badawi’s mistreatment led local as well as Arab and international media
to cover her case, leading to sustained international scrutiny of Saudi
Arabia’s discriminatory guardianship system.

In June 2010, the Jeddah Public Court ruled in her favor in
the case against her father, finding that he unfairly denied her the right to
marry. The court ordered the transfer of her guardianship to her maternal uncle,
although Badawi remained in prison. On October 25, 2010, the Supreme Judicial Council
intervened in the disobedience case and dropped all charges against her, and
she was released from prison on the orders of the Governor of Mecca, Khalid bin
Faisal Al Saud. On April 19, 2011, Badawi married her lawyer, Waleed Abu
al-Khair.

Since being freed from prison, Badawi has continued to
campaign for social justice and women’s rights. In 2011, she became the
first woman to file suit for women’s suffrage in Saudi Arabia by raising
an administrative court lawsuit against the Ministry of Municipalities, after
voter registration centers refused her request to register to vote in upcoming
elections. Badawi’s suit argued that nothing in the electoral law, issued
by the Ministry of Municipalities, bars women from registering as voters or
electoral candidates. The court’s final judgment, issued in May 2011, ruled
against her claim on the basis that her case was “premature,”
apparently in the expectation that the king or Council of Ministers would at
some point issue a decision relevant to the issue. On September 25, 2011, King
Abdullah announced that women would be allowed to vote and run as candidates in
municipal elections in 2015, and would be appointed to the Shura Council, an
advisory board for the king.[34] On 11 January
2013, the king appointed 30 women to the Shura Council and amended the Shura
Council statute to guarantee representation of women.[35]

On June 17, 2011, Badawi joined the Women2Drive campaign, in
which women demanded an end to the ban on women driving (see profile of Manal
al-Sharif). She also challenged the driving ban in the courts. On February 4,
2012, Samar filed a claim at a Jeddah administrative court against the Ministry
of Interior, after it rejected her application for a driver’s license.
Months later, the court announced that the case had been transferred to an
administrative inquiry by a committee at the Ministry of Interior. The results
of the investigation have not yet been announced.

Badawi is the recipient of numerous international accolades
for her commitment and dedication to the cause of women’s rights.[36]
She is currently finishing her high school education, which her father interrupted
when she was a teenager.

Waleed Abu al-Khair: Rights Defender On Trial

Waleed Abu al-Khair is a lawyer and founder of the Monitor
of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, a human rights organization that authorities
have refused to license. [37]

Abu al-Khair petitioned King Abdullah in 2007 to permit the establishment
of the Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia but received no reply. Weeks
later, the Saudi Ministry of Education revoked a governmental study abroad
scholarship that Abu al-Khair had won, without explanation. Abu al-Khair completed
his studies at his own expense.

Ministry of Social Affairs officials have also rejected his
attempts to register the Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia as an NGO in
Jeddah, forcing him to register the organization in Canada. Its website has
also been blocked in Saudi Arabia, but the organization’s Facebook page
has over 5,600 subscribers.

In 2009, Abu al-Khair acted as defense lawyer for a member
of the “Jeddah reformists”, a group of 16 men, including political
and human rights activists, whom police detained after they met to establish a
human rights organization.[38]
Ministry of Interior officials threatened to imprison Abu al-Khair if he
continued his work and warned his father and brother that he should stop his
activities.[39]

In 2011, Abu al-Khair signed two other petitions to King
Abdullah calling for political reform. One of the petitions, titled “Events
in Qatif and Detainees in Jeddah,” called for the release of political
detainees in Jeddah and for investigations into the recent killings of
protesters by security forces in the Eastern Province. Prosecutors questioned
many of the signatories to the petition, including Abu al-Khair. A number were compelled
by threat of prosecution to sign retractions.

Abu al-Khair began his doctoral studies in the United
Kingdom in 2011. Upon returning to Saudi Arabia for the month of Ramadan, the Bureau
of Investigation and Public Prosecution called him to appear before the
Criminal Court of the Jeddah Governorate in September. The court informed him
of criminal charges against him for “offending the judiciary” and
“attempting to distort the reputation of the kingdom”, citing his
calls for the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, and his appearance on
foreign media channels where he spoke out about the human rights situation in
Saudi Arabia and the case of Samar Badawi.[40] In subsequent sessions,
prosecutors questioned him and accused him of providing information to Human
Rights Watch. The trial remains ongoing at this writing.

In March 21012, the Ministry of Interior imposed a travel
ban on Abu al-Khair, preventing him from traveling to the United States to
complete a fellowship program. The ministry did not give the reasons for the
travel ban or its duration as required by law.

On September 12, 2013, Abu al-Khair received a call from an
official with the Prince Mohammed bin Nayef Rehabilitation Program, a Ministry
of Interior-sponsored counseling program founded to re-integrate jihadists into
Saudi society, summoning him to attend sessions at a center in Riyadh and
stating that he would face charges in the Specialized Criminal Court.[41]
Abu al-Khair received the charge sheet on October 6, which lists at least six charges
related to his peaceful human rights activity, including “setting up an
unlicensed organization” and “breaking allegiance with the
ruler.”

On October 2, police arrested Abu al-Khair and initiated a
third criminal case against him for having links with pro-reform activists and
hosting them in his home for weekly discussion groups.[42]
Authorities released him on bail on October 4.

In January 2013, Abu al-Khair was awarded the Olof Palme
Prize for his “strong, self-sacrificing and sustained struggle to promote
respect for human and civil rights for both men and women in Saudi
Arabia.” After authorities prevented him from traveling to the awards
ceremony in Stockholm, his wife, Samar Badawi, accepted the prize on his behalf
on January 25 2013.[43]

Manal al-Sharif: A Driving Force for Change

In 2011, Manal al-Sharif, 34, became the face of a revived
campaign for the right of Saudi women to drive: hundreds of thousands of people
watched a video of her driving a car in the Eastern Province city of al-Khobar
within days of the video’s publication online.[44]

The Saudi Ministry of Interior does not issue driving
licenses to women, making it effectively illegal for them to drive. Even in
cases where women have international driving licenses, police have arrested or
reprimanded them, or forced their male guardians to sign pledges that they
would not drive again. Saudi Arabia’s ban on women drivers has forced
women to rely on male relatives and privately-hired chauffeurs to conduct such basic
tasks as running errands or going to work. Women have complained that hiring
drivers is costly. The authorities have not sought to enforce the ban on women
driving in some rural areas, where it is practiced outside their purview.[45]

Saudi activists have campaigned for decades to end the ban
on female driving. On November 6, 1990, after seeing US military women driving
in Saudi Arabia, 47 Saudi women drove in a convoy in Riyadh violating the customary
ban on driving in order to pressure the government to reverse its policy.
Security forces arrested an unknown number of the women for one day and imposed
work and travel bans lasting up to 20 years on some of the participants.[46]

Conservative religious figures, including some members of
the Council of Senior Scholars, a body of religious scholars appointed by the king,
sought to portray the movement as part of a foreign conspiracy that sought to westernize
the country.[47] On
November 7, 1990, the Grand Mufti and Chairman of the Council of Senior
Scholars, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah bin Baz[48],
issued a fatwa declaring it inadmissible for women to drive cars, on the
basis that the practice would “expose women to temptation” and may
lead to “social chaos”. Shortly after, the minister of interior issued
a statement affirming the ban on women driving on the basis of the fatwa.[49]

In 2008, the Association for the Protection and Defense of
Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia, a women’s rights group founded by
activists Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Oyouni, submitted a petition with
over 1,000 signatures to King Abdullah requesting a reversal of the driving ban.
Al-Huwaider also posted a video on YouTube of herself driving on International
Women’s Day; the video attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers.[50]

In 2011, a group of Saudi women including al-Sharif revived
the movement. On May 3, 2011, the women set up a “Women2Drive”
campaign on Facebook under the slogan “Teach me how to drive so I can
protect myself.” The campaign is part of a broader movement, “Right2Dignity”,
which aims to end all forms of discrimination against Saudi women.[51]

The “Women2Drive” campaign highlighted both the
practical necessity of driving and the danger of being forbidden to do so in
emergency situations, for example in order to drive a sick relative to
hospital.[52]
The Facebook page called on women with international driving licenses to defy
the driving ban from June 17 onwards.

On May 19, al-Huwaider helped to film a video of al-Sharif driving
through the eastern city of al-Khobar. In the video, al-Sharif asserts that all
women have a right to dignity and that this encompasses the right to be able to
move around freely; and she recounts the story of “Farah”, a woman
who is forced, she says, to spend one-third of her salary in order to hire a
private chauffeur whom she shares with other working women. According to
al-Sharif, “Farah” is also forced to leave home two hours earlier
than necessary, in order to arrive at work on time since the chauffeur must
also drop off other women to their places of employment.[53]

Al-Sharif told Human Rights Watch that traffic and CPVPV
officers arrested her while driving on May 21, 2011. They released her six
hours later but re-arrested her at her home the following day.[54] Ministry
of Interior officials held al-Sharif for nine days at the Dammam Prison for
Women. During her detention, Saudi media outlets reported that she had
confessed to being funded by outside sources and that she was engaged in a
conspiracy to overthrow the regime.

On 23 May, a Saudi prison spokesperson told Okaz
newspaper that al-Sharif stood accused of driving a car, inciting other women
to drive, allowing a journalist to interview her while she was driving, and
planning to publish video footage showing her driving, and other offenses. He
said that she would be detained for five days while an investigation took place.[55]
On the eighth day of her arrest, al-Sharif’s father wrote to King
Abdullah requesting that he pardon his daughter. Prison authorities released
her on May 30, 2011, after she agreed to sign a declaration withdrawing from
the June 17 campaign.

Since her release, the Shura council has received at least two
petitions from Saudi men and women calling for the right of women to drive. In
December 2011, a leaked academic study, reportedly endorsed by a member of the
Shura council, claimed that women driving would lead to moral degradation.[56]
In March 2013, however, Arab News reported that the Shura Council had accepted
a petition to look into the driving issue, affirming that it would come up for
debate.[57] The
Shura Council has taken no action at this writing.

On the “Women2Drive” website, al-Sharif calls on
women to continue challenging the ban by filing petitions at Administrative
Courts, as she herself did on November 15, 2011.

Although best known for her advocacy against the driving
ban, al-Sharif has also fought for human rights in other areas. Following her
nine-day imprisonment where she met many female domestic workers in prison, she
launched a Twitter campaign, “Faraj”, calling on Saudi authorities
to release imprisoned migrant domestic workers who are being held for unpaid
debts. Exorbitant recruitment fees combined with unlawful aspects of Saudi
Arabia’s worker sponsorship system sometimes leave the kingdom’s
migrant workers in debt to their sponsors and subject to arrest and detention.[58]
She has also highlighted domestic violence and abuse.[59]

Al-Sharif has paid a price for her activism. In May 2012,
Saudi oil company Aramco dismissed al-Sharif from her position as an Internet
security consultant, a position she had held for over a decade, following her
refusal to cease her activism, she told international media outlets.[60]
Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Taraifi, a prominent Saudi cleric, issued a fatwa
that declared al-Sharif to be “munafiqa”, a religious hypocrite,
a damning term used to denounce someone who conceals their disbelief.[61]

Following her dismissal and numerous death and other threats
against herself and her family, she left Saudi Arabia and currently resides abroad.
She continues to advocate for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia.

She is the recipient of several international awards in
recognition of her work. Foreign Policy magazine named her one of the Top 100
Global Thinkers of 2011. At the ceremony for the Vaclav Havel Prize for
Creative Dissent, which she was awarded in May 2012, she stated that “the
rain begins with a single drop.”[62]

Mikhlif al-Shammari: Bridging between Sects

Mikhlif bin Daham al-Shammari, a 59-year-old journalist and
a human rights activist, has sought to use his role as the Eastern Province representative
of a large Sunni tribe from the central Najd region of Saudi Arabia to improve
relations between Sunnis with the local Shia population.

Security forces have arrested al-Shammari three times since
2007, and on June 17, 2013, Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court, a
court set up to try terrorism-related cases, convicted him of “sowing
discord” and other offenses and sentenced him to five years imprisonment
followed by a 10-year-travel ban. The charges are based on his writings and
attempts to expose human rights abuses in the kingdom; al-Shammari appealed the
sentence in July 2013.[63]

Al-Shammari is active in a number of non-profit organizations,
including the Program of Family Safety, an organization that works to combat
family violence. He has campaigned for greater rights for Saudi’s
minority Shia population, who suffer systematic discrimination at the hands of
the government, including denial of religious and cultural space to worship,
and discrimination in education, administration of justice, and employment.[64]
Al-Shammari made national headlines in 2008 when he visited a Shia mosque in
Qatif and prayed next to a Shia religious leader in a show of solidarity.

Security forces began harassing al-Shammari in 2007,
following his visit to the home of prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Hassan
al-Saffar, al-Shammari told Human Rights Watch.[65]
He said that on February 4, 2007, plainclothes Mabahith officers raided his
home and arrested him. Saudi authorities detained him in Dammam prison until
May 21, 2007 without charge.

Upon his release, al-Shammari began volunteering at the
Saudi Human Rights Commission, a national human rights organization that falls
under the jurisdiction of the Council of Ministers.[66]

Mabahith officers in al-Khobar briefly detained
al-Shammari on May 15, 2010 and questioned him on a number of articles that he
had published attacking hardline religious views, he told Human Rights Watch.
On June 15, 2010, criminal investigation officers arrested him again and
detained him in al-Khobar police station.[67]

Prosecutors interrogated him three times, with
investigations focusing on six articles that he had published on Saudi websites
that criticized the Saudi religious establishment and government, al-Shammari
said. An article published on March 28, 2009, for instance, criticizes promised
tourism projects that failed to materialize.[68] In an article dated
April 18, 2009, al-Shammari lauded an American Christian who was killed while
seeking to protect Palestinian Muslim children, contrasting his action with
Saudi Muslim charities that he said condition assistance on recipients
exhibiting proper Islamic conduct.[69]

On June 20, 2010 the Bureau of Investigation and Public
Prosecution registered case number 2029/255/31, charging al-Shammari with “annoying
others,” according to his file in Dammam General Prison, where he was
moved in early July.[70]
Other charges against him included “being in touch with international
human rights organizations” and “appearing on satellite
television.”

Saudi authorities jailed al-Shammari for 21 months without
bringing him to trial. While in prison, he began a campaign to improve
conditions for detainees, calling on authorities to release detainees being
held beyond their sentences, he told Human Rights Watch.[71]

On July 27, 2011, prison guards removed him from his cell
and told him that he was to undergo routine medical examinations, according to statements
that he provided for a Front Line Defenders news release on August 4, 2011,
which he repeated to Human Rights Watch.[72] Guards placed
him in a prison waiting room where he was approached by a police lieutenant
accompanied by seven soldiers. The lieutenant ordered the soldiers to handcuff
al-Shammari’s wrists and shackle his feet. The soldiers dragged al-Shammari
to a second room without video recording equipment where the lieutenant and
soldiers beat him until he fainted. After regaining consciousness, al-Shammari
said he felt a burning sensation in his mouth and realized that the lieutenant was
sitting on his chest and pouring detergent down his throat and shouting,
“You dirty… die… and I will say you committed suicide.”

The soldiers took al-Shammari to Dammam Medical Center,
where he said he overheard them falsely informing hospital staff that he had
attempted to take his own life. He shouted that the soldiers had tried to kill
him, and prison officials subsequently took him from the hospital back to
prison and placed him in solitary confinement with no further access to medical
aid.[73]

On February 25, 2012, al-Shammari was released from prison
on orders of former Minister of Interior Prince Nayef on the condition that
that he attend a trial at the Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) in Riyadh. That
same day, the Ministry of Interior issued a ban on foreign travel against him.

On March 12, 2012, al-Shammari appeared before a judge in a
closed trial at the SCC in Riyadh on charges including “harming the
reputation of the kingdom,” “sowing discord,” “being in
touch with disreputable organizations,” “appearing on foreign
television stations,” “accusing government organizations of
corruption,” and “criticizing the Council of Religious Scholars.”
He told Human Rights Watch that the court allowed his lawyer to attend only one
of fourteen sessions.

The judge in the trial referred to him several times as an
apostate, al-Shammari told Human Rights Watch. He was convicted by the same
judge on June 17, 2013, to five years imprisonment, following which he is barred
from traveling for 10 years.

Al-Shammari told Human Rights Watch that one charge against
him was brought under Article 6 of the 2007 anti-cybercrime law. He said he had
in 2010 investigated allegations of two girls that their brother was forcing
them into sex work in the northwestern city of Tabouk. He said he investigated
the allegations with the approval of his organization, the
government-affiliated National Family Safety Program, and recorded video
evidence on his mobile phone.

At his trial, the authorities accused him of harming the
public order by uploading a video to YouTube that appears to show the brother
threatening the girls. Al-Shammari said he has no connection to the video and
does not know who created and uploaded it.

Al-Shammari successfully sued the Mabahith for his
unlawful detention between February and May 2007, gaining $42,400 in
compensation on December 5, 2012, but the Ministry of Interior appealed the
decision. The administrative court in Damman ruled that the Mabahith could
not provide evidence that al-Shammari had “contacts with parties who are
antagonistic to the country,” the alleged cause of his arrest. The Mabahith
appealed the decision.

Al-Shammari told Human Rights Watch that his human rights
work has strained both his finances and his family relations. His son has
publicly criticized his activism and, in June 2012, shot him four times. He
spent months in hospital. He continues to advocate for human rights while
appealing his sentence.

Raif Badawi: Persecuted for Encouraging Online Debate

Raif Badawi is the 31-year-old editor and co-founder of the
Free Saudi Liberals website, an online platform he established in 2008 to
encourage debate on religious and political matters in Saudi Arabia. Badawi and
others on the website declared May 7, 2012 as “a day for Saudi liberals,”
hoping to garner interest in open discussion about the differences between
“popular” and “politicized” religion, Su’ad
al-Shammari, the website’s director, told Human Rights Watch.[74]

Police arrested Badawi in Jeddah on June 17, 2012. On July
29, 2013, the Jeddah Criminal Court convicted him of insulting Islam by setting
up a liberal website and violating provisions of Saudi Arabia’s 2007
anti-cybercrime law. The court sentenced him to 7 years in prison and 600
lashes.[75]

Saudi authorities first arrested Badawi in 2008 when prosecutors
questioned him for one day regarding the establishment of the liberal website.
In 2009, the government banned him from foreign travel and froze his business
assets.

In 2011, prosecutors charged Badawi under the 2007
anti-cybercrime law, alleging that his website “infringes on religious
values.” The prosecution’s evidence includes five website postings
by Badawi and anonymous website members critical of Saudi religious authorities
and two postings regarding theological questions, according to the charge
sheet.

During a hearing on Badawi’s case at the Jeddah Criminal
Court on December 17, 2012, Judge Muhammad al-Marsoom prevented Badawi’s
lawyer from representing his client, a member of Badawi’s family told
Human Rights Watch. The judge informed Badawi that he could face the death
penalty if he did not “repent to God” and renounce his liberal
beliefs, the family member said. Badawi refused. Judge al-Marsoom referred the
case to the Jeddah Public Court, recommending that it try Badawi for apostasy,
which carries the death penalty.[76]

On January 22, 2013, the Jeddah Public Court refused to
charge Badawi for apostasy, transferring the case back to the Criminal Court,
which issued its ruling on July 29. According to Badawi’s lawyer, the
judge dropped the apostasy charge after Badawi affirmed to the court that he is
a Muslim and recited the Shehadeh, or Muslim declaration of faith.[77]

Badawi has also come under public criticism from influential
members of the Saudi religious establishment. On March 18, 2012, Sheikh
Abdulrahman al-Barrak, a well-known conservative cleric, issued a fatwa declaring
Badawi an “unbeliever… and apostate who must be tried and sentenced
according to what his words require.”[78] The fatwa ruled it
acceptable for a Muslim to kill Badawi as an apostate. Al-Barrak claimed that
Badawi had said “that Muslims, Jews, Christians, and atheists are all
equal,” and that even if these were not Badawi’s own opinions but
“an account of the words of others, this is not allowed unless
accompanied by a repudiation” of such words.[79] To
Human Rights Watch’s knowledge Saudi authorities have taken no action in
response to al-Barrak’s fatwa.

Badawi’s wife and children moved abroad in 2012 and
have not returned, fearing repercussions against them in Saudi Arabia.

Fadhil al-Manasif: Defender of Detainees Detained

Fadhil Makki al-Manasif, 26, is a photographer and a member
of the Adala Center for Human Rights (Adala Center), a rights organization in
the Eastern Province. Security forces have arrested al-Manasif three times
since 2009. He is currently detained and faces charges including “sowing discord,”
“inciting public opinion against the state,” and inviting the
international media to demonstrations, as well as participating in gathering
information about demonstrations.[80]

As a member of the Adala Center, al-Manasif played a leading
role in documenting abuses against demonstrators in the Eastern Province in
2011. He organized educational workshops on human rights in Qatif and acted as an
interlocutor between the families of detainees and authorities, on several
occasions approaching police officials in the Eastern Province on behalf of
families to ask about the whereabouts of missing family members.

Security forces arrested al-Manasif in his home town of Awammiyah
on April 15, 2009 and detained him without charge for three months at the Dammam
General Prison. Officials accused him and 20 others of participating in
protests, which are banned by the Ministry of Interior, and released him in
June after he signed a pledge not to take part in gatherings.[81]

Authorities arrested al-Manasif again in May 2011, two days
after he disseminated information to international media outlets and human
rights organizations on amendments to the press law and ongoing protests in the
Eastern Province. In response to a summons, al-Manasif presented himself to the
Ministry of Interior’s Criminal Investigation Department in Awammiyah, where
security forces immediately took him into custody.[82]

On June 4, 2011, security forces transferred al-Manasif to
solitary confinement in the General Investigation Directorate (al-Mabahith)
prison in Dammam. On June 6, prosecutors charged him with a series of crimes
related to his first arrest in 2009, including “sowing discord,” “inciting
public opinion against the state,” “damaging public property by
organizing and calling for protests,” and inviting the international
media to demonstrations, as well as participating in gathering information
about demonstrations. Security forces released him on August 22 2011, after he
signed a declaration promising to refrain from participating in further
demonstrations.

On the evening of October 2, 2011, al-Manasif approached the
Awammiyah police station to speak to police about their detention of two
elderly persons, whose sons were wanted for participation in protests. The authorities
had detained the men in order to compel their sons to turn themselves in,
according to the Adala Center for Human Rights. When one of the elderly men
collapsed, al-Manasif followed by car the ambulance taking the man to the
hospital and was stopped and arrested at a checkpoint. Security forces
transferred him to the Mabahith prison in Dammam, and placed him in
solitary confinement for four months, denying him any visits from his family
until August 11, 2012, 314 days after his initial arrest. He remains in
detention.

On May 12, 2011 several United Nations Special Procedures
mandate holders released an urgent appeal on al-Manasif’s behalf,
expressing concern that his arrest violated his right to freedom of expression.[83]
The UN Secretary General on July 21, 2011 also expressed concern that his
situation “may be related to his work in the defense of human rights, in
particular, his involvement in the documentation and dissemination of
information on human rights violations, as well as his engagement with United
Nations mechanisms and other international human rights organizations.”[84]

At this writing al-Manasif remains on trial before Saudi
Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court.

According to the Adala Center, al-Manasif alleges that
authorities have subjected him to various forms of torture during his detention
including beatings on his hands and legs, blindfolding for extended periods of
time, forced standing for extended periods of time, and electrocution.[85]

During his interrogation sessions, a colleague of al-Manasif’s
at the Adala Center told Human Rights Watch, officials questioned him about his
rights activism and he acknowledged being in communication with international
human rights organizations including Amnesty International and Human Rights
Watch. His colleague believes that the courts could file additional charges
against him for communicating with these groups.[86]

Abdullah al-Hamid and Mohammed al-Qahtani:
Symbols of the Rights Movement

Abdullah al-Hamid, a 66-year-old political reformist, and
Mohammed Fahad al-Qahtani, a 48-year-old economics professor, are well-known
Saudi rights activists and co-founders of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights
Association (ACPRA).

Al-Hamid’s activism extends over a 20-year period. In
1993, he and five other academics and religious scholars co-founded the
Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights, a political advocacy group
whose stated objectives included the release of political detainees and
accountability for abuses by members of the ruling family. Authorities accused
the group of ties to extremist Islamist elements and imprisoned and exiled its
members. Imam Mohammed bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh dismissed Al-Hamid
from his job as a lecturer. Authorities detained him six separate times between
1993 and 2008.

Al-Qahtani was an economics professor at the Riyadh-based
Institute of Diplomatic Studies, a unit of the Foreign Affairs Ministry. In 2009,
al-Qahtani, al-Hamid, and eight other academics and rights activists, co-founded
ACPRA in response to the worsening human rights situation in Saudi Arabia. The
organization calls for the implementation of the principles of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, a constitutional monarchy with an elected
parliament, and the creation of transparent and accountable legal institutions.
ACPRA helped many families sue the Ministry of Interior for breaches of Saudi
law in cases of arbitrary detention.

Al-Qahtani and al-Hamid continued ACPRA’s work even
though Saudi authorities have refused to license ACPRA, harassed and
interrogated their members, and Saudi courts have convicted other ACPRA
founders and members on politicized charges. In April 2012, the Specialized
Criminal Court (SCC) sentenced Mohammed al-Bajadi, a member of the
organization, to four years in prison followed by a five-year travel ban for
participating in the establishment of an unlicensed organization, inciting
demonstrations, harming the image of the
state through the media, contesting the independence of the judiciary, and possessing
banned books. ACPRA’s current president, Sulaiman al-Rashoodi,
is serving a 15-year prison sentence followed by a 15-year travel ban imposed
after the SCC t convicted him of charges including “breaking allegiance with
the ruler.”

In April 2012, al-Qahtani, al-Hamid, and a group of other
reformists signed a petition calling for Prince Nayef to be removed as Crown
Prince because he was “not fit to be the next king.”[87]
The petition claimed there had been ill-treatment of tens of thousands of
detainees during Prince Nayef’s tenure as Minister of Interior when he
had helped to turn the Mabahith police into a “henchman to
terrorize the people.”[88]

Al-Qahtani and al-Hamid came under official investigation in
early 2012, along with Dr. Abdulkareem al-Khodr, another co-founder, and
prosecutors charged al-Qahtani and al-Hamid in June. According to an ACPRA
statement, interrogators told al-Qahtani and al-Hamid that the government would
drop the case against them if they agreed to stop their activism. During the
court session when al-Hamid was read out his list of charges, the judge
informed al-Qahtani, who happened to be present, that he too was on trial and
would have his charges read out in another session.[89]

On March 9, 2013, the Criminal Court in Riyadh convicted
al-Hamid and al-Qahtani to long prison terms on charges including “breaking
allegiance with the ruler,” “spreading chaos and destabilizing
public order,” “setting up an unlicensed organization,” “questioning
the integrity of officials,” and “disseminating false information
to foreign groups.” The judge sentenced al-Hamid to a total of eleven
years in prison: a new five-year prison term, in addition to a previous six-year
sentence from which he had been released under a conditional royal pardon in
2006. The pardon had been conditional on his ceasing his rights activism. The
judge also imposed a five-year travel ban to be served following the sentence.[90]
The court sentenced al-Qahtani to ten years imprisonment and a further ten-year
travel ban.

At the final session of the trial, according to Sabq
newspaper, the judges compared the activists to terrorists, claiming that
“calling for a change of the name of the kingdom cannot possibly be
reformist.”[91]
The court verdict described them as ‘deviants’ and compared them to
Al-Qaeda in that both seek to change the regime, but stated that al-Qahtani and
al-Hamid seek to do so through peaceful means. After al-Hamid criticized the
court’s lack of independence, the newspaper reported, the presiding judge
Hammad al-Omar warned him not to question the sentences, and that “judges
may add what crimes they deem necessary to the charge list.”[92]

The judge ordered the immediate detention of al-Hamid and
al-Qahtani, who had been at liberty during the trial, and the dissolution of
ACPRA, the confiscation of its assets, and the closure of all social media
accounts linked to the organization. Al-Hamid and al-Qahtani appealed the
decision on May 28.[93]

In his report to the UN Human
Rights Council regarding reprisals for cooperation with UN mechanisms, UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon referred to the case of Mohammed al-Qahtani,
stating that “reportedly the charges made specific reference to his work
as a human rights defender and accused him of providing false facts and
information to international mechanisms by way of statements and the
dissemination of information about individual complaints against the Saudi
Government which ‘contradict the truth and reality documented in official
papers’.”[94]

Sulaiman al-Rashoodi:
Promoting Rights under Islamic Law

Sulaiman al-Rashoodi is a 76-year-old judge and current president
of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA). Al-Rashoodi has
been on the front lines of promoting civil society and criticizing authorities
for their human rights failings for more than 20 years. His activities have
made him a consistent target of Saudi authorities’ attempts to stamp out
dissent.

In 1993, he helped to establish one of the first independent
civil society groups in Saudi Arabia, the Committee for the Defense of
Legitimate Rights. For his role in establishing this organization the authorities
imprisoned him for two months, banned him from travel for five years and, in an
apparent effort to deprive him of his livelihood, revoked his law license.[95]

In 1995, al-Rashoodi led the first known protest in the conservative
Najd region of Saudi Arabia, the historical homeland of the Saudi family and
the Wahhabi movement. For this the authorities threw him in jail for
three-and-a-half years without charge or trial.[96]

Authorities arrested him again in 2004 and held him for two
weeks for signing a joint letter to then-Crown Prince Abdullah asking for
constitutional reforms.[97]

Police detained al-Rashoodi again in 2007, along with 15
other activists, academics, and lawyers who had been meeting to establish a
human rights organization in Jeddah; police claimed the men were part of an
alleged terrorist “sleeper cell.” They held al-Rashoodi without
charge for almost four years. In July 2011, they brought charges against him
and released him on bail on condition that he would not reveal details of his
arrest or detention.

On November 11, 2011, the Specialized Criminal Court sentenced
al-Rashoodi to 15 years in prison for “breaking allegiance with the ruler,”
“cooperating with outside organizations,” and other charges that
arose entirely from his peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression
and associationsuch as “participating
in forming an organization called ‘Tawasso’ in order to
spread chaos under the cover of advice and reform,” and “criticizing
state-affiliated religious scholars.” ‘Tawasso’ is an Arabic
acronym for Public Peaceful National Gathering, the name of the human rights
organization the men had planned to set up. Notwithstanding his conviction, he
remained at liberty until police arrested him again on December 12, 2012, after
he delivered a public lecture in Riyadh on the legality of demonstrations under
Sharia law.[98]

Al-Rashoodi has since been serving his sentence in al-Ha’ir
prison near Riyadh; prison officials prevented him from contacting his family
for three months, until February 2013.[99]

The court that sentenced al-Rashoodi in November 2011 also
convicted 15 other members of the Jeddah reformers’ group on a number of
the same charges during the same group trial; six of them remain in detention.
Saud al-Hashimi, a professor and social activist, is serving a 30-year sentence
with a further 30-year travel ban and a fine of 2 million riyals (US$534,000);
Musa al-Qarni, a university professor, and Abdulrahman Khan, a researcher, are
both serving 20-year sentences with a 20-year travel ban; Abdullah al-Rifa`i, a
Syrian national, is serving 15 years and subject to immediate deportation
to Syria following his jail sentence; and Abdulrahman al-Shummayri, 59, a
university professor who gave several lectures calling for constitutional
reform, is serving 10 years and a 10-year travel ban.[100]
Others remain at liberty under conditions of a royal pardon provided in January
2013 in
which they signed a pledge not to repeat their offenses or engage in public
activism, and thanked the king.

Turki al-Hamad: “Getting Things Moving”

Turki al-Hamad, 58, is a novelist and political analyst who
has written on subjects considered taboo in Saudi Arabia, including religious
freedom, sexuality, and scientific rationalism.[101]

On December 21, 2012, al-Hamad used his Twitter account to publish
a series of short statements criticizing Islamists and official Saudi interpretations
of Islamist thought. He stated: “Our prophet came to rectify the faith of
Abraham, and now is a time when we need someone to rectify the faith of Muhammad.”
His next tweet stated: “They [Islamists] have distracted us with nonsense
that we forgot the important issues.” In his next tweet, he implicitly criticized
Saudi Arabia’s state-sponsored, fundamentalist Islamism, stating
“the age of Nazism is gone, and the sun will rise again.”[102]

Saudi police arrested al-Hamad on December 24. In early
January, a group of over 500 authors, academics, and civil society figures
addressed a petition to Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz, calling for the
“immediate and unconditional” release of al-Hamad, referring to him
as a “leader in cultural thought.”[103] They
called his arrest an “attack on freedom of expression.[104] Saudi
authorities detained al-Hamad for more than six months without charge until his
release on June 5, 2013.[105]

Al-Hamad is best known for a fictional trilogy, Phantoms
of the Deserted Alley, which centers on a Saudi teenager who debates themes
of heaven and hell, philosophy, and social constraints. The first installment, Adama,
was published in 1998. In the last novel in the trilogy, the main character,
who by then is imprisoned, muses that God and the Devil are interchangeable. In
an interview about the book, al-Hamad stated that: “Where I live there
are three taboos: religion, politics, and sex. It is forbidden to speak about
these. The situation has been static for so long, I wrote this trilogy to get
things moving.”[106]

Saudi authorities banned the book, and Saudi clerics issued fatwas
against it and called al-Hamad an apostate, a crime that is punishable by death.
His name also appeared in an Al-Qaeda statement as an apostate who should be
arrested and tried.[107]
In response to the death threats against al-Hamad, then-Crown Prince Abdullah (who
ascended to the throne in 2005) provided the author with security protection.[108]

Al-Hamad is also the author of academic books, including Arab
Culture and the Challenges of Modernity and Politics: Between the Lawful
and the Forbidden.[109]
He grew up in Dammam and in 1985 obtained his PhD in Political Science from the
University of Southern California.

Adel Ali al-Labbad: “Poet of the
Revolution”

Adel Ali al-Labbad, 45, is a political activist and poet from
the Eastern Province city of Awammiyah. Security forces have arrested him four
times over the past ten years and, according to his own accounts, tortured him.

In 2012, following the death of Minister of Interior Prince
Nayef bin Abd al-Aziz, al-Labbad published “For This, I Shall not Forgive
You,” a poem that criticized the ministry’s sweeping arrests of
protesters and its ill-treatment of dissidents. Later in 2012, he wrote
“Dancing on Blood” in response to the death of protester Khaled
al-Labbad, who was shot dead outside his home in the Eastern Province. His 2012
book Inqilab (“Coup d’Etat”), contains a group
of poems touching on the popular uprising in Bahrain and the fall of former
Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. His writings have earned in the moniker
“Poet of the Revolution” among the Shia population of Eastern
Province.

Al-Labbad, a Shia, fled Saudi Arabia to Iran, India, and
Syria in the 1980s, where he was a member of several banned Shia political
associations in exile. Saudi authorities never accused him of involvement in
violence, and he returned to Saudi Arabia under the general amnesty promulgated
for Shia dissidents by King Fahd in 1993.[110]

Al-Labbad’s most recent arrest occurred in October
2012, two days after the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Iqtisadiyya published
a glowing review of his writings. Ironically, the review noted that
“al-Labbad today lives a normal life, no one pursues him or throws him in
prison for life.”[111]

According to his family, al-Labbad was driving home from
work at the Ministry of Water and Electricity on October 10 when two cars
forced him to pull over. Security officers checked his identification card and escorted
him to the police station in Qatif, where police searched his vehicle and found
copies of Inqilab. Family members told Human Rights Watch that when they
went to the police station, officers initially denied that he was there, until one
of his family members spotted al-Labbad’s car in the parking lot. After
the officers admitted that they were holding him, Al-Labbad’s relatives
returned several times to the police station and requested permission to visit
him. An officer threatened one of his relatives: “If you keep coming here
to ask the same question you will join [him] soon.”[112]

After arresting him security forces interrogated al-Labbad for
20 days while holding him in solitary confinement, his relatives said.[113]

Authorities eventually brought al-Labbad before a judge, but
family members were unable to find a lawyer who would agree to represent him. They
believe that al-Labbad faces accusations stemming from his writings and online
activity on social-networking sites Facebook and Twitter. Judicial authorities
have refused to release court documents stating the specific charges.[114]

Authorities are currently holding al-Labbad in the Mabahith
prison in Dammam and have refused family requests to release his ID and bank
cards, leaving them in a precarious financial situation because without these
documents they cannot access his bank account.[115]

Recommendations

To the Government of Saudi Arabia

Releasing all prisoners held solely for
their peaceful practice of their rights to free expression and association,
including prisoners convicted of alleged crimes, prisoners currently on trial,
and prisoners held arbitrarily;

Halting all acts of intimidation,
harassment, and smear campaigns against rights activists, including those
carried out by individuals invested with or claiming religious authority;

Halting the imposition of arbitrary travel
bans without justification or notification.

The Saudi Royal Court and Council of Ministers should enact
necessary legal reforms, including by:

Promulgating a penal code that
clearly defines acts that give rise to criminal responsibility in line
with international human rights standards. The penal code should also
criminalize use of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or
punishment;

Promulgating a Law of Associations
that enables civil society organizations to work freely and independently,
with government oversight only where strictly necessary and proportionate;

Promulgating a Law of Assembly
that guarantees individuals and groups the right to peaceful assembly;

Rescinding the Executive
Regulation for Electronic Publishing activity that subjects all forms of
electronic news and information to the vague provisions of the Press and Publications
Law of 2000 and which significantly hampers online freedom of expression;

Amending the Law of Criminal
Procedure to permit detainees to challenge the lawfulness of their
detention before a court, to guarantee access to legal counsel in a timely
manner, and to make statements obtained under duress or torture inadmissible
in court;

Enacting laws ensuring that religious
minorities, including the country’s Shia population, receive equality
of access in all areas of public life including institutions of higher
learning, employment, and state institutions, including in the security services,
high ministerial positions, local and provincial councils, the Shura Council,
and military academies;

Enacting changes to the Travel
Documents Law ensuring that travel bans handed down by the Ministry of
Interior can be challenged in court;

Further protecting freedom of
worship for religious minorities, including freedom in the building and
upkeep of religious sites, distribution of religious materials, and
religious celebrations.

The Ministry of Interior and the Bureau of Investigation and
Public Prosecution should ensure greater transparency and prevent ill-treatment
of detainees, including by:

Promptly, and prior to
interrogation, allowing the detainee to communicate with legal counsel of
his or her choice, and informing him or her of this right at police
stations, Mabahith offices, and other custodial settings of law
enforcement agencies in compliance with the Law of Criminal Procedure;

Videotaping, dating, and
serializing all interrogations, and promptly making the full content of those
tapes available to the detainee and his or her counsel;

Ending practices requiring a
detainee to pledge to abstain from certain acts or perform certain acts as
a condition of release, unless such a pledge is part of a formal,
judicially-sanctioned agreement and does not in any way inhibit the
exercise of the detainee’s human rights.

The Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Judicial Council
should strengthen the rights of defendants to ensure they receive a fair trial,
including by:

Ending trials of protesters and
activists in the Specialized Criminal Court, and ensuring that all
defendants are provided with legal counsel, and all trials are open to the
public;

Allowing defendants to
effectively challenge the evidence against them;

Ensuring that witnesses for the
prosecution and defense appear in court so that defendants may
cross-examine them;

Issuing guidelines for
introducing evidence;

Issuing sentencing guidelines,
including on the meaning of guilt proven beyond reasonable doubt for
discretionary sentences.

The Saudi government should dismantle the legal guardianship
system for all women and enforce women’s equal rights in all areas of
public and private life, including by:

Establishing an oversight
mechanism to ensure that government agencies no longer require a guardian’s
permission for women to work, travel, marry, study, or access any public
service, and that they can participate in all activities afforded to men;

Issuing clear and explicit
directives from the Ministries of Higher Education, Interior, and Labor to
their staff prohibiting them from requesting a guardian’s presence or
permission to allow a woman to access any service;

Drafting executive or
implementing regulations clearly laying out the responsibilities of
specific government agencies in implementing and enforcing the Law on
Protection from Abuse;

Allowing women’s access to
justice and courts including by guaranteeing a women’s right to
provide witness testimony without discrimination.

Thanks goes to activists inside and outside Saudi Arabia who
chose not to be named.

Annex 1: Letter from Human Rights Watch to the
Ministry of Justice

March 14, 2013

Dr. Mohammed bin Abdulkareem Al-Issa

Minister of Justice

The Ministry of Justice

University Street, Riyadh 11137

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Your Excellency Dr. Mohammed bin Abdulkareem Al-Issa,

We hope this letter finds you in good health.

As you may be aware, Human Rights Watch is following the
trials of a number of human rights defenders in Saudi Arabia. We are planning
to issue a report on these human rights defenders and wish to brief you on our
concerns before publication, to give you the opportunity to provide us with
information that we can reflect in our report, provided that we receive the
information by April 15 10, 2013.

We also hope to have the opportunity to visit you in person
to discuss with you our concerns about human rights in Saudi Arabia, and hope
that you will issue visas to our staff members for this purpose, as requested
in our letter to His Excellency Mohammed bin Nayef al-Saudi, dated December 10,
2012. As noted above, we will incorporate all pertinent information that you
send us in a timely fashion. It is our view that Saudi Arabian law,
as it is currently applied by many judges, criminalizes peaceful work in
defense of human rights, leading to the authorities harassing, arresting and
trying rights activists. In the past year, the judiciary has charged rights
activists with a range of offenses including “establishing contact with
outside organizations” and “annoying others.” Because Saudi
Arabia does not have a codified criminal code, judges are free to criminalize
acts in accordance with their interpretations of Islamic law.

We are particularly concerned over the trials of human
rights activists in Specialized Criminal Court, which according to our
information deprive defendants of certain due process rights guaranteed by
international law. We invite you to provide us with information on a number of
such cases, including that of Abdullah al-Hamid and Mohamed al-Qahtani, members
of the Saudi Association for Civil and Political Rights based in Riyadh, who
are being tried on charges that included “harming the reputation of the
Kingdom.”

We are also concerned that other human rights activists
currently face trials in criminal and district courts, including Mikhlif
al-Shimmari, an activist from the Eastern Province, who is being charged with
“annoying others” and Walid Abualkhair, a lawyer from Jeddah,
charged with “being in touch with outside organizations.”

In order that our planned report will reflect official
views, we would like you kindly to answer the following questions:

What is the full list of charges levied against the above
persons? Have the above defendants had the opportunity to appoint lawyers, and
at what stage of the proceedings?

Are each of the above-mentioned trials are open to the public,
including independent monitors?

What is the legal basis for the imposition of travel bans
against these persons?

We are also further concerned by the detention of five
members of the Jeddah reformist group, who were arrested after attempting to
set up a human rights organization in 2007. They include Sulaiman al-Rashoodi,
an ex-judge whose bail was revoked in December 2012. The other four members of
the group have been in custody since 2007 and are serving sentences of up to 30
years for charges including “breaking allegiance to the King.” We
are also concerned by the continued detention of Fadhil Manasif, a human rights
activist from the Eastern province. We would like you kindly answer the
following questions:

What is the legal basis for the detention of Fadhil
Mansif, and the members of the Jeddah reformist group including Sulaiman
al-Rashoodi, Suad al-Hashimi, Musa al-Qarni, Abdulrahman al-Siddiq, and
Abdulrahman al-Shimmairi?

Have independent monitors have had the opportunity to visit the
above-mentioned persons in order to monitor the conditions in which they are
being held? Have these persons been allowed regular visits from family members
and access to lawyers? Are any of these persons being held in solitary
confinement;

Will members of the detained Jeddah reformist group, Sulaiman
al-Rashoodi, Suad al-Hashimi, Musa al-Qarni, Abdulrahman al-Siddiq, and
Abdulrahman al-Shimmairi be permitted to appeal their cases to a higher court?

We will reflect any pertinent information or observations
that we receive from you or other Saudi officials in our reporting on these
matters, if received by April 15, 2013.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any
questions. As noted above, we stand ready to come to Saudi Arabia to
discuss these matters directly with you, and hope that you will also facilitate
the provision of visas for this purpose.

[4]
For example, on June 15, 2013 a Saudi court convicted prominent women’s
rights activists Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-`Oyouni to 10 months
imprisonment and a two-year travel ban for “inciting a woman against her
husband” [تخبيب
مرآة على
زوجها].
Local activists told Human Rights Watch they were unaware of any instances in
which authorities had previously used this particular charge, and some said
they had to consult dictionaries to understand the meaning of the Arabic word
takhbib. See “Saudi Arabia: Activists Convicted for Answering Call for
Help,” Human Rights Watch, June 18, 2013, http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/06/17/saudi-arabia-activists-convicted-answering-call-help.

[6]
According to article 112 of Saudi Arabia’s criminal procedure law,
“major” crimes are specified by the minister of interior upon the
recommendation of the director of the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution
as crimes that require pretrial detention. To Human Rights Watch’s
knowledge, crimes such as murder, rape, terrorism, drug-trafficking, among
others, have been treated as “major” crimes by the Ministry of
Interior.

[18]
According to Arab News, there are three million twitter users in Saudi Arabia
– approximately 10 percent of the total population. See Fadia Jiffry,
“#Saudi Arabia world’s 2nd most twitter-happy nation,” Arab
News, May 20, 2013, http://www.arabnews.com/news/452204
(accessed August 15, 2013)

[36]
On March 8, 2012, the US State Department recognized her as an
“international woman of courage” for her contributions to the
advancement of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia; see Office of Global
Women’s Affairs, United States Department of State, “2012
International Women of Courage Award Winners”, http://www.state.gov/s/gwi/programs/iwoc/2012/bio/,
March 5, 2012.

[37]Saudi
Arabia’s Justice Ministry has refused Abu al-Khair’s requests for a
law license, but he nonetheless represents clients in court as a wakeel (or
legal representative) at the discretion of individual judges.

[82]
Human Rights Council, Annual Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Report
of the Secretary General, July 21, 2011, A/HRC/18/19,